Chapter 15 Sera’s House
FIFTEEN
Sera's House
EVIE
The neighborhood looks exactly like my memories of it.
Quiet streets lined with mature trees. Minivans in driveways.
A kid's bicycle abandoned on someone's lawn.
Sera's house is halfway down the block—blue shutters, white trim.
The rose bushes she planted the year Rosie was born are climbing up the porch railing, filling the air with a heavy, sweet perfume that feels like a physical embrace.
Normal. Safe. The life I wanted for them when I left Sacramento for the mountains five days ago.
Five days. It feels like five years.
"That's it." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "Blue shutters."
Jon pulls the SUV to the curb two houses down. His hand moves to his weapon, checks it, settles. The easy charm from the helicopter is gone—he's pure operator now, all sharp edges and coiled tension.
"Stay behind me until we're inside." He doesn't look at me as he says it. His eyes are scanning the street, the houses, the spaces between. "If anything looks wrong—"
"I know. I remember."
His gaze flicks to mine. Holds for a beat. Something passes between us—not words, just acknowledgment. We've had this argument already. We found our compromise.
"Let's go."
We exit the vehicle. The afternoon sun is warm on my face, incongruously pleasant for what we're walking into. A lawn mower hums somewhere in the distance. Birds chirp. Somewhere, a dog barks twice and falls silent.
My feet carry me toward Sera's door. Jon is beside me, slightly behind, his body angled in ways I'm starting to understand mean he's ready to put himself between me and any threat. Every step feels endless. Every breath feels borrowed.
The door is blue. Rosie picked the color when she was four. I want it to look like the sky, Mommy.
I raise my hand.
I knock.
Silence. My pulse hammers in my ears. Jon's presence at my back is a furnace of contained readiness.
Then: footsteps. Fast. The scrape of a chain lock. The door swings open and Sera is there—dark hair in a messy bun, circles under her eyes.
She sees me.
"Evie." My name comes out strangled. "Oh my God. Oh my God."
She grabs me. I grab her back. We're both shaking—her whole body trembling against mine, her arms locked around my shoulders like she's afraid I'll disappear if she lets go.
The air in the entryway rushes out to meet me, smelling of lemon furniture polish and the clean, sun-dried scent of laundry—the specific lavender detergent Sera always uses.
It’s the absolute, heart-wrenching opposite of the cabin’s Pine-Sol and stale coffee. This is what life smells like.
"I thought you were dead." Her voice is muffled against my shoulder. "Five days, Evie. Five days and nothing. I called everyone. The FBI wouldn't tell me anything. I thought—"
"I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Don't you dare apologize." She pulls back enough to look at my face, her eyes wet. "Don't you dare. You're alive. You're here."
"Mommy?"
The small voice comes from the hallway. Rosie stands at the bottom of the stairs, clutching a stuffed elephant, her eyes huge and uncertain.
"Aunt Evie?"
Everything in me cracks open.
"Hey, Rosebud." I drop to my knees, opening my arms, and she's running before I finish the words.
The impact of her small body nearly knocks me over.
Her arms wrap around my neck with the ferocious strength of a child who loves without reservation, without caution, without any of the walls adults learn to build.
"I missed you." Her voice is muffled against my shoulder. "I missed you so much."
"I missed you, too, baby girl." The tears are coming now—I can't stop them, don't want to. "I missed you so much."
Jon clears his throat. I look up to find him standing in the doorway, his expression carefully neutral, but something soft around his eyes as he watches us.
"We need to move." His voice is gentle but firm.
Sera's spine straightens. The weepy relief shifts into something sharper—the single mother practicality I've watched her develop over six years.
"Good." Jon steps inside, closes the door, and scans the living room.
His tactical boots look heavy and foreign on the plush rug, treading past a stray glittery hairbow and a half-finished puzzle of the solar system on the coffee table.
He is a predator in a playroom, his gaze turning Rosie's brightly colored toy bin into a potential obstacle and the hallway into a fatal funnel. "How fast can you be ready to leave?"
"Already am." Sera moves to the hall closet and pulls out two backpacks. One adult-sized, one small with cartoon butterflies. "I packed them three days ago."
Jon goes still.
"You packed go-bags three days ago?"
"Evie disappeared. The FBI told me she was in protective custody, but she didn't call. Didn't text." Sera's jaw is tight. "She always finds a way. So I packed my bags and waited."
Something shifts in Jon's expression. Respect, maybe. Or recognition. "Smart."
"I'm a single mother. Smart is survival." Sera crouches to Rosie's level. "Remember what we talked about, baby? The adventure bag?"
Rosie nods solemnly. "If you say go, I grab the butterfly bag, and I don't ask questions."
"That's my girl." Sera kisses her forehead. "We're going to go on an adventure now. With Aunt Evie and her friend. Okay?"
"Okay." Rosie's eyes move to Jon. She studies him with the intense scrutiny only a child can manage—cataloging the gun on his hip, the set of his shoulders, the scar through his eyebrow. "You're the one keeping Aunt Evie safe?"
"That's right."
"Are you good at it?"
"Very good." He crouches to her level, and the operator mask softens. "I'm going to keep all of you safe. That's my job."
Rosie considers this. Nods once. "Okay. But if you're mean to Aunt Evie, I'll kick you."
The laugh that escapes Jon is surprised and genuine. "Deal."
"Mitzy." Jon touches his earpiece, straightening. "Sitrep."
I can't hear Mitzy's response, but I see his expression tighten. His eyes cut to the front window.
"Copy. Keep tracking them." He turns to us. "We need to move. Now. There's movement two streets north—could be nothing, could be them. I don't want to find out."
Sera grabs the bags. I take Rosie's hand. Jon moves toward the kitchen, weapon drawn.
"Back door. I go first. When I say clear, you follow. Stay tight, move fast."
We're halfway through the kitchen when his earpiece crackles again. Whatever Mitzy says makes his whole body change—a shift from controlled to combat-ready that happens in a heartbeat.
"How many?" His voice is clipped. "ETA on Echo team?”
The way Jon's shoulders drop slightly tells me it's good news.
"Copy. Tell them to push it." He turns to us. "Change of plans. We're staying inside."
"What—"
"Multiple vehicles inbound. They made us." He's already moving, pushing us back toward the living room. "Backup is twelve minutes out. We hold here until they arrive."
"Twelve minutes?" Sera's voice is sharp with fear.
"I've held longer with worse odds." Jon's scanning the room, calculating. "Upstairs. Back bedroom. Away from windows. Go."
"Jon—"
"Go." His eyes meet mine for one second. In that heartbeat, I see everything—the fear he won't let himself feel, the determination that burns underneath, the something else that neither of us has words for yet. "Stay with Rosie. No matter what you hear, you stay with her."
"Don't you dare die."
The words come out fierce. A command, not a plea.
His mouth quirks. That crooked grin, even now. "Sweetheart, I've got way too much to live for now."
Sera is already pulling me toward the stairs. I grab Rosie—she smells like strawberry yogurt and bubblegum toothpaste—and we run. She's frozen, her small body rigid with a fear no six-year-old should know, and we run.